New York mandates flood disclosure. Co-op and condo buyers are exempt.
In 2023, Albany strengthened flood disclosure at residential home sale, adding seven mandatory questions about flood history and flood risk. The amendment did not extend to cooperative apartments or condominium units, which have been excluded from the disclosure law since it was enacted in 2002. For the category of housing that represents the majority of owner-occupied residential units in New York City, the gap remains.
New York State now requires sellers to answer seven flood-risk questions before any home sale closes. The law is explicit about who it covers — not co-op shareholders, not condo unit buyers. The exemption was written into the Property Condition Disclosure Act in 2002, and the 2023 amendment that added the flood questions left it untouched.
The baseline rule for every other home sale.
Since March 20, 2024, a seller of residential real property in New York must deliver a Property Condition Disclosure Statement before the buyer signs a contract. Assembly Bill A.1967, signed by Governor Hochul on September 22, 2023, eliminated the $500 credit that previously let sellers skip the disclosure in exchange for a flat payment at closing. The amended statement now includes seven questions specific to flood risk: whether the property sits in a FEMA 100-year or 500-year floodplain; whether federal law requires the owner to carry flood insurance; whether the seller has received FEMA disaster assistance for flood damage; the current flood insurance policy number and carrier, if any; whether a FEMA elevation certificate exists for the property; and whether the seller has ever filed a flood damage insurance claim.
The 2023 amendment emerged from the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which struck New York City on September 1, 2021. Ida's remnants dropped 3.15 inches of rain on Central Park in a single hour, nearly double the 1.75 inches per hour the city's sewer infrastructure is designed to handle. Eleven people drowned in basement apartments across Queens and Brooklyn. According to the FEMA post-event assessment for New York City, none of the affected buildings were in FEMA-designated flood zones. The maps did not capture stormwater flooding risk in dense urban neighborhoods. Albany recognized the gap and moved to add flood-specific questions to the mandatory disclosure. The scope of who was covered by the law did not change.
Co-op and condo sales have been exempt since 2002.
Real Property Law §462 defines who must complete a disclosure statement. The text is direct: the Act applies to "the seller of residential real property," and then the statute specifies what that phrase covers. A cooperative apartment is not residential real property under that definition. Neither is a condominium unit. Both are explicitly excluded from the Act's scope.
The exclusion dates to the law's original enactment in 2002. The rationale offered at the time was that co-op sales involve the transfer of shares in a corporation rather than a direct transfer of real property, and that condo sales were governed through offering plans reviewed by the AG's Real Estate Finance Bureau. Neither argument addressed resale transactions. When a co-op shareholder sells shares held for ten years, no offering plan is involved, no AG review is triggered, and no state-mandated disclosure document is required. The seller may choose to volunteer information. No statute compels it. The 2023 amendment that strengthened flood questions for home sales made no change to the definitional scope of the Act.
Leases require flood disclosure. Sales do not.
New York Real Property Law §231-b, effective June 21, 2023, requires every residential landlord to include a flood risk and flood history notice in every new or renewing lease. A co-op corporation, acting as landlord under its proprietary leases, must comply. An individual condo unit owner who rents to a tenant must comply. The required disclosures are substantively the same as the PCDA flood questions: floodplain location, flood insurance requirements, and any prior flood damage the landlord knows or reasonably should know about.
The statute covers leases. It does not address the transfer of co-op shares or the sale of a condo unit. A prospective buyer who rents before purchasing would receive flood disclosure in the lease. That same person, as a purchaser of the property, receives none. The distinction is not a drafting oversight in §231-b. The legislature wrote a lease-disclosure law. A sale-disclosure law for co-ops and condos does not exist in New York State.
What New York requires at each type of transfer.
| Transaction type | PCDA flood questions required? | RPL §231-b notice required? |
|---|---|---|
| Single-family home sale | Yes — since March 20, 2024 | No |
| Co-op share transfer | No — explicitly excluded by RPL §462 | No — leases only |
| Condo unit resale | No — explicitly excluded by RPL §462 | No — leases only |
| Co-op proprietary lease | No | Yes — since June 21, 2023 |
| Condo rental by unit owner | No | Yes — since June 21, 2023 |
Two 2026 layers that stop at the same line.
NYC Local Law 12 of 2026 requires the Department of Buildings to add flood risk information to every building's property profile in its online portal. For each property, the portal now shows whether the building sits in the 10-year stormwater rainfall flood risk area and links to the city's flood risk area map. The law also requires new above-ground tank installations in stormwater flood risk zones to be elevated at least two feet above adjacent grade, and directs the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability to develop recommendations for additional regulations by July 1, 2028.
What LL12 does not do: it creates no obligation for a seller, broker, managing agent, or co-op corporation to give a buyer any of that portal information at contract signing or at closing. The data is in the DOB system. A buyer who knows to check the building's property profile can find it. No statute requires anyone to point them there.
The AG's offering-plan review does not fill the gap either. Under 13 NYCRR Part 20, a condo or co-op offering plan must disclose all material facts. The regulations contain no specific provision requiring flood history. They predate the era when stormwater flooding in dense urban neighborhoods became a recognized safety and pricing factor. More to the point, the offering plan applies only to the initial conversion. Every subsequent resale of a co-op share or condo unit occurs without AG involvement, without an updated offering plan, and without any equivalent document.
What buyers can do today.
No law prevents a buyer from seeking flood information on their own. Four steps are available before any contract is signed.
- Check the DOB property profile. Since LL12 of 2026, the NYC Department of Buildings portal shows whether the building is in the 10-year stormwater flood risk area. Run the address at the DOB website before scheduling a showing.
- Run a FEMA flood zone determination. The National Flood Insurance Program can locate the property on FEMA's current flood insurance rate maps. One limitation matters here: FEMA maps capture coastal and riverine flooding. They do not capture stormwater flooding, which is the flood type that drowned eleven people in NYC basement apartments during Ida. A property outside a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area is not necessarily low-risk for the type of storm event the city has experienced most recently.
- Ask in the purchase contract. A buyer's attorney can add a seller's flood representation and warranty to the purchase agreement before signing. This is a negotiated right, not a statutory one. Sellers in a strong market often decline. Asking is still the only mechanism available to compel a written answer.
- Review the building's records. Board minutes, Local Law compliance filings, boiler logs, and Department of Buildings filing history often surface evidence of past flooding that no seller would volunteer. The methodology for a forensic-level records review is described in Inside a forensic building audit.
Bottom line.
The legislature excluded co-op and condo sales from the Property Condition Disclosure Act in 2002. That choice was ratified in 2023 when the flood-disclosure amendment passed without reopening the definitional scope. Every disclosure layer added since 2023 stops at the same boundary: the flood questions in A.1967, the lease notice in RPL §231-b, the portal update in Local Law 12 of 2026. A buyer of any other type of residential property in New York State now has a statutory right to seven answers about flood risk before signing a contract. A buyer of a co-op share or condo unit has no equivalent right. Co-ops and condos account for the majority of owner-occupied units in New York City. That boundary is not an accident. It is the policy.
Primary sources: Real Property Law §462 (Property Condition Disclosure Act, scope of coverage) · A.1967/S.5400 (2023 PCDA amendment, signed September 22, 2023) · Real Property Law §231-b (flood notice in residential leases) · NYC Local Law 12 of 2026 (DOB flood risk portal requirement) · FEMA P-2333 (Hurricane Ida NYC post-event assessment)
Companion resources: What NYC condo and co-op owners can legally demand from the board · Why the NY AG can't help with most condo governance disputes · Inside a forensic building audit · Most condo sponsor LLCs are exempt from NY's transparency act